Torn
by waterhands20
Summary: How she wished she had destroyed that letter the moment she received it...


**So I was re-watching LOK last night and this wonderful, angst filled scenario crept up into my imagination. Enjoy.**

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Her dark, wavy tresses were still damp from her recent debacle with the Triple Threat Triad. It seemed that new initiates were the ones she battled; not that she didn't notice from the get-go. They were so off on their bending style that each of their attacks was easily repelled by her and her squad. Just one move managed to get by her, which immediately disintegrated over her head as her fist embedded itself in the thug's gut. Now having incarcerated the lowlives, she now had the free time to meet with Tenzin. His letter seemed urgent, and she didn't want to keep her man waiting.

She stood on the pier of Air Temple Island, waiting for him to arrive. Her shifts are always long, but she was able to squeeze an hour's break into the schedule in order to see what this was all about. Arms crossed and a scowl worn on her pencil-thin eyebrows, she counted the stars that began to make their appearance on the twilight sky.

"Ugh, what's taking him so long? I got work to do." She analyzed her fingernails while her foot tapped an irregular beat.

Not long after, she spotted the object of her affection, descending down the borderless path that led from the summit of the island to the base. His tread was so light he looked as if he were gliding. Halfway down his walk, their eyes met. She hasn't seen them filled with so much dejection in a long time. _"Tenzin?"_

She happened to notice his uncomfortable demeanor from a mile away, all too familiar with that same, exact posture. She dealt with thieves, scammers and murderers morning, noon and night for goodness sake, of course she'd be able to read just about anything that breathed. But why did he look this way? There haven't been too many problems with the pro benders as of late, and crime within the city has been for the most part controlled, so what was his deal? Just then, she felt her heart sink when she remembered the argument she had with him a fortnight ago.

"_Something's wrong." _

How could she forget that? And how did the days pass so quickly? It's been two weeks for goodness sake! She must've been so enthralled with the latest Agni Kai case that she literally forgot all about it. Is that what this is all about? A simple argument about the job that escalated to a point where it shouldn't have, or her failed effort to get in contact with him afterwards? She was too hypnotized by her own thoughts to even notice his pace, and before she recognized the time lapse, he was already standing before her.

"You look great, Lin." his voice was as troubled as the look in his eye.

Her mouth went dry; the way he phrased his daily compliment to her seemed strangely different, and not in a good way.

"As do you." lost by the awkwardness of the man standing in front of her, those were the only words she could articulate at the moment.

He forced a smile, "Take a walk with me, please." he pleaded in a soft tone as he held out his hand towards her.

Without questioning, she grabbed the hand that begged for her hold and mindlessly followed his lead.

Passively strolling down the wood pier, she attempted to avoid eye contact, desperately trying to keep the suspense from eating away at her. She nonchalantly tapped the side of her left thigh while her stare darted to just about every area in her vision but his, yet she soon found herself being once again pulled by his magnetic allure. She analyzed him like if he were a suspect in one of her many lineups; he looked to have been practicing some moves with his father, judging by the sweaty sparring trousers, burgundy boots and sleeveless kimono top slacking from his perspired body.

She couldn't stand how exotic he looked at that moment beneath the light of the moon, with his chiseled jaw, defined physique, short goatee and entrancing, stone eyes. Coupled with his air bending tattoos, he really was a sight; heck, he looked positively delicious, and she found herself unable to control the butterflies fluttering in her stomach at the thought of having her way with him. But there were obviously more pressing matters that needed to be tended to, once again being brought back down to earth by his distance.

"_What do you want from me Tenzin?"_ her thoughts repeated in her mind like a squawking parrot, while her mouth remained a solid pout.

Suddenly he stopped, prompting her to do so as well, "I know you're questioning why I brought you here." He turned to face her with his deep gaze, now holding both of her hands in his grasp.

"_Criminy, since when does Tenzin read minds?"_ she could literally hear the grunt in her own head.

"A couple of nights ago, we had an argument." he acknowledged solemnly while avoiding eye contact with her, "They've been happening all too frequently between us Lin, so I purposefully refused to see you because that spiff we had made me realize a couple of things, but I needed some time for myself to finally sort through what was really going on within me."

His detached gaze was now frightening her, "Oh?"

He breathed in deeply before his eyelids parted, his vision now having found hers, "I realized that what we've been experiencing is not healthy for either of us. Our constant bickering coupled with the attention your ranking position demands for has left a strain between us."

"_Is he proposing to fix us? How many times have I heard this same speech? He'll just take me out to dinner, we'll talk about the issues, resolve them and all will be well again. My goodness, he can be such a drama queen sometimes."_ she joked to herself, while trying to fight the storm brewing in her chest.

He caressed her face, his thumb gently grazing her lower lip, "Lin, you know I will always love you…"

The bomb had yet to nestle itself in her gut before she guessed the words that would soon follow. Her eyes widened and twitchy lips slightly parted, she found her hands began to quiver like the catastrophe rumbling in her heart.

"But, I believe our relationship has run its course."

There was a moment of silence. He stared at her, waiting for her to respond, but she was as if frozen in place. She felt her heart explode and die, yet it still beat so rapidly she could hear its thumps from within, now having embedded a sickening ache across her belly. How she wanted to just unglue her feet from the ground and dash out of the island at that very moment and never look back, but her limbs were abruptly limp, and she found herself unable to pry from his gaze. The burn behind her eyelids threatened tears to fall, and then as if he had just told her something meaningless she stopped trembling, quickly putting on a façade while she clenched her teeth beneath her full, rose lips.

"Is it her?" she murmured, struggling to keep her composure.

He shook his head violently, "I-I don't know what you're talking about."

Now her inner turmoil had begun to emerge in spurts, "Oh come on, you're so full of hot air Tenzin! I know you've been seeing her behind my back. You don't think I have informants of my own telling me of your whereabouts, huh? Like the other day, I had to find out from one of my men that you were parading around with this girl all over town, and you didn't bother to tell me anything; after two weeks of not speaking a word to each other, how would you expect me to react to something like that?" she shouted.

Only a silent stare was what he could conjure at the moment. She was right, how would he react if the roles were reversed, and he had to find out from someone else that days after they argued, she was seen throughout the day with another man? The thought disturbed him.

"Tell me, Tenzin, was there a kiss involved in the midst of all that palling around?" she asked, her arms now crossed.

He sneered, unable to believe what he was hearing. Here he was, doing the most difficult thing he has ever done in his entire life, and she's discussing it like some sort of interrogation between a lawyer and his client. But he half expected the subject to be brought up at some point, yet did she honestly believe he would disrespect the sanctity of their relationship that way?

Right then, he remembered seeing Ping, one of her top officers and close comrade, glaring at him from across the main street on the day she was referring to. There was a point where she lost her grip on the heavy boxes she carried. Unaware they had both simultaneously bent down to pick up the boxes; their foreheads collided before their chins rose in reaction and consequently, their lips touched. It was an honest mistake, neither of them intended to do it, but it just looked terrible from his part, especially from a spectator judging only by what he saw. Why oh why didn't he take the shortcut past the East side of the city like he planned?

"I tried to tell you, but you brushed me off." he reminisced, "You were so busy that I couldn't even pull you to the side and explain what happened. I was helping her and her family move her things. Her parents just moved across the city and she asked me for help which is why I was seen with her, but I assure you I never touched her let alone kissed her. Please don't accuse me for anything I didn't do."

"Don't you dare play coy with me. Since that little home wrecker started swooshing her hips and cascading around the station like a darling, little princess, I knew something was up."

Her horns started to show, and he knew that only spelled impending trouble, "Lin please."

"I want to know what's going on, Tenzin, and I won't rest until you blurt it out." she demanded, hand to her hip and the other with its index finger pointing to the ground as if she were scolding a child.

He felt his patience being tested, and the peaceful side of him had begun to dissipate, slowly giving way to quiet irk, "Ok, do you want to know why?" He grabbed hold of the shoulder plate of her metal armor and roughly shook, "This is why. You're always busy, consumed by your work. That's all you ever do."

"Oh, here we go with the same argument." her hand waved mockingly before she slammed her palms continuously over her chest, inwardly writhing in pain. "I work, Tenzin! This is my job, my duty! I know I have probably been a bit insufferable lately, but you have to understand that this is a profession that I just can't turn my back on. It demands of my attention every second of every day, and when my mother passes on, who will take her place to run the damn place, hmm? None of my men or women is competent enough to fill her shoes, not even me, yet it is I who must work to my brink in order to protect my mother's legacy!"

"Of course I understand that, Lin, but not every second of every day. You live it, you breathe it; that's all we ever talk about, that's all we ever do, work! What is there between us besides that?"

She stood dumbfounded, truly at a loss for words. Then, a fleeting thought quickly replaced her hurt with seething anger.

"Ok, Tell me what this is really about Tenzin." she hissed, "Is it because I never wanted to give you the family you wanted, because I _still_ don't want to?"

His aggravated expression soon gave way to sadness, and he stared at her with hopelessness, "Lin…you know how I feel about that." his heart broke at the thought of the consecutive pregnancy terminations she's had during the course of their relationship.

But she could care less about his own emotional scars, now trying frantically to mend the fresh ones he just implemented on her with cruel words, "Is she willing to give that to you? She looks like the type that'd be willing to bend over for any man." she scoffed.

Suddenly, his fists balled as his face unexpectedly contorted with anger.

"You can say anything about me Lin, shout at me, curse me, but I will _not_ tolerate you speaking about Pema in that way in _my_ presence!" The emphasis in his tone signaled that the topic was no longer up for conversation.

Now she knew that this was it. The way he reacted when she insinuated Pema was a floozy was enough evidence of that. Feeling defeated, her face dropped, unable to even hold her chin high.

"Republic city needs me, and it cannot be tended by its Chief if she's caught up in any sort of intrusive condition, including a delicate one."

Her words cut through him like a jagged knife. How she referred to having children of her own as 'intrusive' was unsettling. Pema was right; she was in love, but not with him.

"And obviously you need it as well, more than you need me."

She bent her eyebrow curiously, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean it exactly as I implied, you love the city and you love your job much more than you loved me, if you ever even did." he glared back at her intently, his voice unbalanced by his unhappiness.

"_How could he say that…HOW COULD HE SAY THAT?"_ She was shocked by his bold accusation. How she wanted to just sink her sharp claws into his eyeballs and tear him into pieces at that point for even having the nerve to suggest such a thing. But inside was a raging furnace that was burning out and giving way to both agony and exhaustion. Her eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, but she remained mute, biting her tongue as her head screamed with every possible negative thought it could conjure.

"This conversation's going nowhere and I must be off soon." she finally spoke.

He scanned her for a few moments, not a single sign of sorrow etched on face. He almost couldn't believe she was taking it so casually. This was hard for him as well, but she remained unphased and uncaring, and it hurt him deeply. Is this what their relationship meant to her, nothing?

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"_Oh sure, you having dumped me for some random broad is perfectly fine and dandy with me. Geez Tenzin, how can you be so dense?" _her inner cry echoed, trying hard not to escape her lips in a loud shout, "I'll be fine, more than fine." she cringed at her own words, unable to believe even herself.

But he did, and with a final amorous gesture, he rested his hands on her metal-encased shoulders and edged his face close to hers, their lips only a few centimeters apart.

"I'm truly sorry Lin, but I meant it when I said that I will always love you." His hands then moved nimbly to the sides of her head, leaned his mouth above her brow and kissed her sweetly. He lingered there for a few moments, savoring the sweet scent of her hair one last time as he exerted to contain his sobs. He then shifted to her ear and whispered,

"_I'll see you at work tomorrow."_

His gray spheres became entwined with her aqua gaze at that moment, both trying to read into the other's mind but unable to. With a final caress to her blushed cheek, he parted from her; walking away from his lover for good, leaving way only to a possible friendship.

It was like a dream to her. She contemplated whether all of this was real, whether she was truly standing on Air Temple Island in the middle of the night, and whether Tenzin just broke up with her for someone else. The thought that it was all so had become unnerving to the point that she felt herself unhinge as she torturously attempted to make sense of what happened, and at what point their relationship went down south.

"_This, t-this is nothing. It wasn't meant to be, it never was. I can't give him what he wants, and I won't, and that's ok."_

But she didn't feel ok, far from it. She was careful not to let him see her shed her tears, but as she watched him walk away from her, the grim reality of it all finally sunk in. Quietly weeping underneath the moonlight and gripping her arms as if trying to hold herself together, she pondered over the difficult fact that as a member of the council, she was forced to see him daily. "_How am I supposed to face him again after all of this?"_ The thought made her want to throw up, but she couldn't let him see her destroyed; the last thing she wanted was his pity. How she wished she had destroyed that letter the moment she read it.

But she refused to lie down and accept it. Soon enough her anger would revitalize and she would have her vengeance, but she was too numb to even think, even too numb to go back to work. All she wanted to do was return home and wallow in her own grief, because contrary to what Tenzin believed, or whatever ideas that loose girl put in his head, she really did love him, and it was both jarring and heart wrenching that he denied it ever existed.

Walking back to her boat, her expression fell back into its stern normalcy, the glisten in her stinging eyes having blurred her vision, and now the only evidence of emotion in her void stare.

"_Goodbye Tenzin, and see you tomorrow."_

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_**Please excuse my typos, as I clearly didn't bother to proofread this. I just pretty much wrote and posted. This is my first one shot, and one I enjoyed writing. God I love drama.**  
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